


The Age of Beauty

by KLaxAddict



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scene, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 03:39:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12380127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLaxAddict/pseuds/KLaxAddict
Summary: Before there was Auctioneer Rick and Mama Eun-Rick, there was just Rickochet and Riri, laughing at the corner table of a club.





	The Age of Beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Citadel of Lost Children](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6286300) by [futagogo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/futagogo/pseuds/futagogo). 



The day she first takes the stage as Rickochet, she thinks of Margareet Zelle, the Dutch teenager who transformed herself into Mata Hari.

Mata Hari was a fabrication turned legend, a patchwork of Indonesian culture sexed-up and sold to the masses as an authentic priestess performing seductive and titillating rites for the European elite. An easily disabused lie that took on a life of its own, becoming the most famous dancer and courtesan of the 20th century.

But no matter how she tried, Mata Hari never escaped the shadow of Margareet Zelle, her abusive husband and abandoned children haunting her throughout her wildest triumphs.

Rickochet isn't going to look back. There's nothing back there for her anyway.

 

* * *

 

 _Whats Up Uranus_ is, unsurprisingly, a sleazy fucking strip club in one of the less popular red light districts dotting the Citadel. Most of the Ricks that find themselves there are locals, drawn in by the cheap drinks or the Ad Space Mortys hawking the specials on the corner.

Rickochet learns the tricks of the trade, becomes popular for her lap dances and the way she's usually sober enough to remember the regulars' nicknames and particular quirks.

A few weeks after she starts she notices a Rick that comes in two or three times a week. He always sits at a table, never the bar or the stage, and he watches her. She writes it off as paranoia the first few times, it's difficult to get used to eyes constantly prying, but that's the _job_. She's here to be watched, to draw eyes to her long enough to open wallets and buy drinks.

However, one night she finishes her dance on stage, and she can still feel his eyes burning into her after she's climbed down from the pole, as she collects her fistful of cash and secures it in her garter belt. Enough is fucking enough.

She knows she looks good, platform black heels and nude fishnets rising up to meet a pleated black miniskirt. Long strings of pearls drape down to her tapered waist over a low cut pink corset with black trim that ends just above her ribs, teasing a peak at her non-existent cleavage for anyone who dares to sneak a glance down. Straightening her hair and pulling her annoyed expression into something more seductive, she struts over to his table and slides into the chair beside him like she owns it, counting her earnings from her dance.

“You know, I've met some Ricks with terrible manners, but most get the courage to buy me a drink after a certain amount of time staring at my ass.”

He hasn't reacted since she sat down, still scrutinizing her as if he's trying to pick her dimension number and worst secrets out of her face. Still, his voice is light and casual as he responds.

“I'm sure they do, but you can rest assured I wasn't staring at your ass.”

“Oh really?” She tucks the fistful of bills down the front of her corset and turns her attention fully towards him. “I'm sure it was my sparkling personality during that last number that drew your attention so intently.”

“Oh to be sure,” he counters smoothly. “You are certainly something of an anomaly in an establishment such as this.”

“Yeah,” she purrs, sliding practically onto his lap, looping a string of pearls around his throat and pulling it taut to bring him close. “I'm a real pearl among swine."

His breathing is shallower now, and he's staring into her eyes with more than a hint of lust, tongue unconsciously coming out to dart across his lips.

“Although,” she continues, “I'm pretty new here.” Reaching down, she wraps her fingers around his chin, and turns his attention towards a different part of the club.

“If you're looking for what I think you might be, I think Mistress Ericka might have seniority.” A dominatrix in a black leather bustier held a red-faced Morty on her lap against her chest, whispering intently into the boy's ear and twisting hard at his nipples.

“She's busy right now, but I'm guessing she'll be free in about... oh... thirty seconds?”

He laughs, and she's surprised. It's not a snort or a chuckle, or any of the usual amused noises that she coaxes from Ricks on a regular basis, but a high and airy thing, almost melodic.

“As kind as that offer is,” he says, bringing his hand up to remove her grip from his chin and kiss lightly her knuckles, “I think I'm quite happy staying here with you.”

“All right,” Rickochet replies, unwinding her pearls and settling back against the Rick. “You can tell me what you were actually thinking about while I was wrapping myself around that pole like ivy up a tree.

“Actually I was thinking about the fact that the heat and pressure at the heart of some quasars form the largest and purest diamonds in the universe.”

She perks up slightly, arching an eyebrow. He sets his cocktail down again, fidgeting with the napkin with a finger.

“I was wondering if a pair of earrings made from those diamonds might match your eyes.”

He meets her gaze, smiling slyly. “Of course, now that I've gotten a closer look, I know they'd never come close.”

She scoffs, waving over the waiter from the bar. “Well until you come up with a better alternative, you can start by buying me a drink.”

 

* * *

 

He comes by more regularly after that, and either makes a point of asking for her or waiting for her to finish with whatever poor sap she has between her legs at the moment.

Most evenings he sits at his table and watches her, lighting up when she makes her way to his corner of the room, doing his best to hold her there by buying round after round of drinks, until even her asshole of a manager can't complain.

He quickly identifies the fact her wardrobe is styled around Belle Époque France, and all custom made, not some cheap knockoffs. Exploiting her weakness for the period as much as he can, he draws her in for hours with talks about the glory days of Burlesque and Parisian nightlife, of World's Fairs and an age of new technology, of Impressionist art with so much passion it overflows the boundaries of color and form.

He starts to dot the conversations with words and phrases in French as the days go by, at first full of bad grammar and horrific pronunciation before it eventually smooths out and becomes textbook flawless, hours lost in conversation in the corners of a dingy strip club. She isn't sure why he didn't just use a translator chip, but allows herself to be charmed by the slight Spanish lilt his French never loses.

She calls him Riri, and the name makes him blush high on his cheeks and stumble over his usually smooth patter. The nickname is one of a half dozen she rotates for some of her favorite regulars, but as the months go by she realizes its stuck around, and so has he.

He flirts incessantly with cheesy pickup lines and dramatic declarations. She finds it a refreshing change from the filthy promises and coarse come-ons of most of the Ricks that bother to try and get in her pants. When he's drunk he recites dirty limericks intended to make her laugh, and earnest sonnets that aren't, but do anyway. When he's made enough cash from whatever snake oil he's peddling that month he brings presents, running the gambit from period-accurate perfume to an original signed postcard of Arlette Dorgère.

The nights he buys dances are the best though, letting her pull him to the relative seclusion of the back room, his face already flushed and his pants tenting like a Morty on a prom night. Letting him sink into the overstuffed couch, she spends ages slowly peeling away her layers in the way few of the patrons appreciate on stage while she watches him fall apart.

His jokes and flirtations slow to a trickle when she props a heel against a chair and slides her stocking down in painstaking inches. His adulations become quiet exhalations when she pulls the pins from her hair, shaking it slowly and letting it fall loosely around her shoulders.

She always thinks his breathing stops entirely when she settles her thighs around his waist, bringing her arms down to play with his hair and tease at the shell of his ear while she kneels above him. He keeps his hands rooted firmly beside him, except for when she brings one to her mouth to nip and suck at his fingers, relishing the tiny moans and renewed floods of praise that fall from his lips when she does.

More than once she's tempted to blow off the rules of the club and watch him come in his pants.

 

* * *

 

He drops a bundle on the table in front of her one day, and she unwraps it to find some of the finest whalebone in the multiverse from Titan D-235.

He soliloquizes for twenty minutes while she admires each piece individually, spinning a thrilling tale of his exploits to retrieve it, full of plasma pulse cannons and deep sea exploration, eventually emerging victoriously from the literal belly of the beast, singed from stomach acid and dripping with the blood and blubber of his vanquished foe.

She smiles fondly at him as he finishes with the usual themes of undying devotion and her unparalleled worth, returning her prize to its brothers on the table, already planning the new corsets she can make on her next day off.

“You bought these from the market on Delebrian, didn't you.”

Richard doesn't bat an eye at being called out, cheerfully shrugging, “Perhaps, but my story was better.”

She laughs, sliding her legs across his lap she leans back against his shoulder, accepting the sling of his arm around her bare shoulders. “It definitely is. Though it's hard to imagine you a dripping mess like that willingly, Riri. You're one of the fussiest Ricks I've ever met.”

He licks his lips lasciviously and trails his fingers along her arm. “Minette, I am more than willing to make such a mess with you _any_ time.”

Smacking his hand away playfully, she sighs dramatically. “All right, well to the victor go the spoils. What can I provide my brave knight in return for his sacrifices?”

“I know a fantastic spa on Nuptia-7, I think a week or two there with your enchanting company might do a world of good towards healing me from my harrowing ordeal.”

“Try again.”

“A kiss then?”

Rickochet pretends to consider it deeply for a moment, before sitting up and turning to face him. “All right, then.”

Winding an arm around his shoulders, she tilts his chin up with two fingers to meet her, a bit flattered to recognize his breathing is already a little ragged. Lipstick-rouged lips press gently against chapped ones, which fall open with little to no coaxing. Riri is quiet beneath her, seeming content with letting her lead, but eagerly meeting the flicker of tongue that she darts across his bottom lip as she pulls away.

He's still beneath her when she sits back, eyes closed as if in extreme concentration. Eventually he sighs and opens them, a shine of pure adoration bright in his pupils like a KLax high.

“Would you love me better if I actually slayed a beast for you, ma petite sirène?”

 

* * *

 

She upgrades to a better club, full of black leather couches and soft pink lighting. There are no poles, but there's still a stage, where her style of burlesque is not only appreciated, but headlined.

The clientele here style themselves 'The Elite', and they pay through the nose for the privilege. She can afford the best of everything now, clothes, substances, surgery. It feels like she's remade herself again, a better version.

The only things that follow her from her time at _What's Up Uranus_ are three whalebone corsets and Riri.

He only makes it by once or twice a month now, the club's prices not so much a deterrent as a hurdle he seems determined to overcome. When he does come by though, it's an event. She catches herself blowing off her other high-rollers, charisma keeping her chained to his table like nothing's changed.

He comes early and stays late, slowly drinking bottles he buys just before closing with money he looks like he doesn't have to spare, but always throws down without a glance.

It's on one of these nights that she finds herself sitting at the bar next to him, halfway into an overpriced bottle of vodka. The houselights are up, Mortys are stacking chairs and sweeping the floor, and she's laughing over the stupidest joke she's heard in years.

Riri has recently figured out her weakness for riddles and terrible puns, and he's been doing his best to drive an unattractive belly laugh out her her all night.

He looks ecstatic that he's succeeded, staring at her under the unforgiving light like a lost masterpiece.

“Rickochet,” he breathes. “C’était un coup de foudre.” Reaching out, he grasps her hand, and brings her knuckles to his lips with the same tenderness he had the night they met.

“Passer la nuit avec moi. Please, mon amour, just one night.”

“Richard,” she sighs, annoyed to have the evening tainted with an argument they'd had a dozen times. She's taken to calling him Richard when he's particularly frustrating, and she's loathe to admit it's become yet another nickname.

She does go home with clients now and then, usually for cash, other times for jewelry, and sometimes simply because it's a good idea to have a friend in high places.

“We both know you wouldn't be content with just one night.”

Gently pulling back her hand she avoids the hurt in his eyes. It isn't her fault he continuously chooses this hill to die on.

“And if I could promise otherwise?”

“Promesses fait dans le nuit ne vaut pas le jour.”

They sit in silence now, passing the vodka back and forth as they drain their glasses.

He recovers himself in a moment, bouncing back to his usual charm. “You can't blame me for trying.”

She smiles a little wistfully. “No, I suppose you wouldn't be you if you didn't.”

“Ah, chérie. We were born in the wrong era.” He reaches for the bottle to pour the last of it into her glass. “If the universe gave a single fuck about either of us you would be la Grande Dame of Paris and I the starving artist who creates a masterpiece in your honor.”

“Riri, you couldn't paint a roof.”

Clasping a hand to his chest he declares earnestly to the empty bar. “If ever there was a muse to inspire me, it would be you.”

“All right, you win. In another life you can be my little Toulouse-Lautrec.”

He frowns, trying to recall. “Wasn't he the dwarf that spent all his time with prostitutes?”

“If the shoe fits,” she shoots back smoothly. “Wouldn't I be the muse of dance, not painting?”

Riri looks at her, his face graver than she's seen it all night.

“Chouchou. Terpsichore is not a sexy name for a muse.”

 

* * *

 

All the money in the world still can't buy class, she thinks bitterly, as rough hands tear at her clothes and a cloud of bourbon almost strong enough to make _her_ eyes water blows hotly across her face.

Rick L-325 was new to the citadel and had high-rolled his way straight into _SanChez Cabaret_ , money flowing like cheap beer until closing. Rickochet had spent the majority of the evening on his lap, and he hadn't reacted well to her polite refusal to spend the night and most of the next morning on it as well.

He'd grabbed her as soon as she'd walked out the back door of the club and thrown her against the alley wall, grinding his crotch against her skirt as he fumbled with the clasps on her fur coat. He's knocked the breath out of her, her face has been ground into the wall, and she hears something tear beneath her, and goddamn it she's tired and she just wants to go _home_.

L-325 has her arm wrenched behind her back, and a knee between her legs, but he seems far more interested in blathering out incredibly unoriginal dirty talk than actually subduing her.

“Fuckin' tranny slut, teasing me all night long like you don't want it when we both know you do-” She jerks her head back roughly, feeling the blunt ache of connection as she hears the satisfying crunch of his nose. He stumbles backward, giving her the space to spin and jam her knee into his nuts. Rearing back as far as she can, she lands an uppercut on his jaw that sends him sinking to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

Checking to make sure the fucker was down for the count, she snorts.

“I didn't want your dick when I was born with it, why the fuck would I want it now?”

She valiantly resists the urge to curbstomp the fucker through the ear with her heel, rapist piece of shit or not, he was one of the Elite she's getting most of her business from these days. Surveying the damage to her outfit, she purses her lips and frowns. The lining was most definitely ripped, and she had no idea where her last patron had gotten it. She'll have to have it replaced with a different fabric.

A figure moves in the corner of her vision, and she nearly startles before she recognizes the nonchalant pose and sighs, continuing to smooth her skirt and pulling out her compact to check the damage the wall has done to her makeup.

“I'm surprised you didn't take it upon yourself to do the gentlemanly thing and help a lady out.”

Richard smiles, not moving from his casual lounge against the very wall she's just become so uncomfortably familiar with, his arms and legs crossed as he surveys her dishabille.

“Ma cherie, I'm hurt. Why do you continuously expect me to underestimate you?”

His eyes slide intentionally down at the unconscious L-Rick on the ground before returning to her face, a faint smirk barely held at bay. She suppresses a snort as she snaps her compact shut, refusing to admit his point on principle. He could have intervened for the sake of her wardrobe, if not her honor.

He snaps from the wall, taking a deep lungful of the recycled Citadel atmosphere and exhaling as exuberantly as if it were the freshest garden air.

“As capable you may be, ma beauté féroce, you are quite right to chastise me.” He walks towards her, stepping neatly over the unconscious Rick without a glance downward. “However, the night is exceptionally beautiful and I should hate for you to fall prey to any more... petty inconveniences.”

Holding out his arm with a typical overly gallant flourish, he looks up at her with an earnest gaze. “May I have the unparalleled pleasure of escorting you home?”

Rolling her eyes, she gives in and takes the proffered limb. “Merci beaucoup, mon prince.”

They stroll arm in arm through the darkened Citadel, Riri comfortably chattering about matters of no importance to make her laugh until they come to her apartment.

Unlocking the door, she leans in to drop a kiss on his cheek before saying goodnight. As she closes the door, she expects to see a flicker of frustration or amused disappointment.

She recognizes nothing on his face but unabashed delight.

 

* * *

 

The years pass, faster than she'd like. Harder times hit them both, and she goes months without seeing Richard.

When they do see each other it's almost affected, a trip down nostalgia lane rather than a natural interaction.

He flirts, and she demurs.

He's fine, but he feels middle-aged and boring.

She's fine, but she feels middle-aged, and that's not acceptable.

Their companionship remains that of a pair of fast-talking, ambitious opportunists, chafing against the confines they find themselves set in.

She still goes home with clients now and then, a few devoted regulars that keep her in shoes. Until one day she walks through a door and sees her future in a half-dead Morty, covered in filth, clutching a bloodied pile of papers.

 

* * *

 

Mata Hari slept her way through the most powerful men across Europe, lining her pockets with their gifts and money. She danced, and smiled, and listened. She grew older and fatter and dangerous, and lost none of her power as she did so.

But 'La Belle Époque' ended, brought down by the crashing machinery and unforeseen horrors of World War I. Mata Hari was executed for espionage, blowing a kiss to the firing squad, a decade younger than Rickochet is now. She chose money over power, trying to play a game while simultaneously remaining above it.

Rickochet thinks of this as she clutches a tattered tome to her chest and stands before the Council of Ricks, refusing to let her legs shake.

She'll have to be better. It's what she always does.

 

* * *

 

She quits _SanChez Cabaret_ with no notice, blowing off her manager's repeated threats and pleas for 'one last night' for the regulars. Barricading herself in her apartment, she picks apart the gospel of the 'One True Morty' with the devoted and single-minded attention of an amphetamine addict.

She's barely moved three days later, when a frenzied banging on her door draws her out from her mass of notes and papers.

Throwing open the door, she's only moderately surprised to see Richard. What's more surprising is the state he's in, out of breath and disheveled, as if he'd run all the way to her apartment.

“R-Rickochet. They told me-they said you'd quit.”

“I did,” she replies, a little wary of the almost manic look in his eye. “What do you want, Riri?”

He gawps at her, seeming at a loss for words for perhaps the first time in as long as she known him.

“What do I want?” he eventually repeats, stunned.

She can't remember him ever raising his voice to her either, but now he's stepping forward as he practically shouts.

“I've been telling you what I want for twenty years!”

She steps back automatically, more than a little shocked.

Richard seems to recognize he's crossed a line, softening his voice and entreating her again.

“Mon coeur...”

“You need to leave.” Her voice is steady as she speaks, and she thanks God and the One True Morty that seems to be her new patron saint.

“Rickochet,” he begs, his face cracked and open as he stares too deeply into her again.

She screws her courage to the sticking place and meets his eyes dead on.

“That's not my name anymore, Richard.”

The door closes on a broken man, and she locks every lock she has, heading towards the liquor cabinet.

She meant what she said. She just isn't sure who she's going to be now yet.

 

* * *

 

She puts thought into designing the Eun-Rick's uniforms. Costuming is important. White robes evoke authority and spirituality, but Ricks have never put much stock in either of those traits.

Eventually she settles on a flowing toga she can throw over her shoulder to soften the curve of her chest and sway at the hips to show off her legs. It's classic, nearly timeless. Mata Hari played Cleopatra in a similar outfit, the glare of the house lights on the white fabric dazzling audiences away from small imperfections in her face, the spreading of her hips. But she's added just a hint of Isadora Duncan, Mata Hari's more virtuous, boring, martyred counterpart. The only thing worse than aging poorly is pretending you haven't aged at all.

Fussing with the fabric at her collarbone, she checks her reflection for the first time and starts.

It looks like a sacrificial gown. It looks like a shroud.

She's reinvented herself before, but this is the first time she doesn't recognize herself in the mirror.

She must be getting old and sentimental. She can't imagine wearing this every day.

She slips on a pair of classic blood-red pumps, that kind that leave her too tall and make Ricks glare up at her like a freak. Digging through the bottom of her jewelry box she finds a small pair of gold hoops.

Blood and gold. That'll do.

 

* * *

 

The Morty Craze takes hold of the Citadel, and Richard starts to approach her regularly again, all expensive gifts and flash now he's made his way into the Council's good graces. She finds herself fighting conflicting urges to smile and roll her eyes every time he pops up with his satin suit and a con-man's grin.

He probably thinks she should be grateful, this far past her prime. He'd lose interest as soon as he finally managed to get her naked. She's just a reminder of his youthful dalliances, a minor obsession still lingering over the one that got away.

She ignores the hurt, blackened part of her that couldn't stand it if he did. The traitorous part that _is_ grateful he still lavishes attentions on her.

He sends her quasar-heart diamond earrings, complete with a note in French.

_'I still haven't found ones to match your eyes, but these will have to do for now.'_

They're worth more than she would have made in a month at the height of her career, but they don't fit the uniform she wears now. They aren't for her, anyway, they're for someone who doesn't exist anymore.

She sends them back without a note.

 

* * *

 

The third time she finds him at her door, she pulls him inside, unsure of exactly what she's doing and yet more sure than she's been of anything though years of uncertainty, of vague signs and possible textual interpretations.

She drops her hand from his as she nearly slams the door behind them, pressing her back against it as she steadies her breathing and considers what she's just done. He seems to recognize that she needs a moment free of his prying eyes, stripping her even further when she's already feeling more naked than she'd ever been on stage. He surveys her apartment instead, and she wonders how it measures up to the hundreds of times he claims he's imagined it.

She's suddenly self-conscious and protective of her small corner of the Citadel, a bit faded and worn just like its occupant. Rich Parisian wallpaper in warm tones stretch from floor to ceiling, and soft flickering lamps hang from rod iron fixtures in the ceiling. Her furniture is comfortable, but suddenly seems shabby, and the bright red stain on the carpet seems to be a single garish spot of color in an ocean of soft peaches and cream.

“I-I can open another bottle, if you'd like a drink.”

Riri turns to face her again, taking her again by the hand she'd placed over his. He drops a kiss on her knuckles, the dramatic, deceptively simple gesture he's done a hundred times before, and it makes her heart ache in a way she didn't think it still could.

“Whatever you would like, chérie.”

It's spoken with such earnest simplicity that it drives home the reality of what she's started. They've circled each other for thirty years now, and suddenly she's horribly, horrifically certain that there's nothing she can do to live up to that. No way to make up the decades of devotions that have been lavished upon her by the man before her.

She leans forward and presses her lips against his, trying to pour thirty years of thanks and apologies into a single kiss, and hoping she still tastes of sweet wine.

He moans behind her lips, and suddenly she can't move fast enough. They've wasted decades, she's not going to let them waste the rest of tonight. She pulls at his suit jacket, and he shrugs it off, letting it crumple on the floor without a second thought as they walk over it, stumbling towards the bed.

Backing him into the mattress is easy, his knees crumpling instantly, even as he toes off his ridiculous shoes and socks. She crawls into his lap, her hands deftly undoing the buttons of his shirt even as she refuses to break the kiss. It's only as she tugs the tails of his shirt free and sets her sights on his belt that she notices that his hands are firmly gripping the duvet beneath him, knuckles nearly white with strain. Tearing herself away from his mouth, she kisses her way along his jaw until she makes it to his ear.

“You know you can touch me this time, Riri,” she coos softly.

The groan that rips itself from his throat is the most beautiful thing she thinks she's ever heard, and as his hands shakily settle on her hips before moving higher to explore the curve of her ribs she feels more in control than she has in years.

The dam that holds back his usually unceasing patter seems finally to overflow and then break, and he's rambling in French and English alike, telling her exactly how many times he's fantasized about her above him just like this, of how he can't even remember the last time he came without moaning her name, of how every daydream he's had for thirty years pales to the reality of holding her in his arms while she presses open-mouthed kisses along his collarbone.

She grazes her teeth against his shoulder, and a hundred nicknames in a language he learned to impress her fly out of his head for a single word.

“Rickochet.”

She rips his shirt from its tenuous grasp on his shoulders and slides her hand into his pants, bare of the rings and acrylics she uses to disguise its strength, palming at the straining heat that's waited so patiently for her to realize what she has.

“Fuck me, Riri. I need you.”

Those seem to be the magic words, because with a heaving sob he's wrapping his arms around her so tightly she can scarcely breathe, and pulling her further up on the bed, dropping kisses everywhere he can reach like raindrops in a hurricane, muttering something that might be her name when he's forced to come up for air. She has just enough time to fumble for lube from her nightstand as he pulls off his pants and underwear, never ceasing his onslaught of kisses and reverent touches along her calves and feet as he does so.

She always thought Riri would be unbearably intense or comically lighthearted in bed, but this, this worshipful touch and heartfelt praise is doing more for her than she ever could have imagined. Her skin feels fresh and alight, almost younger wherever his touches land, and his words feel like a balm for parts of her soul she didn't know were aching. He crawls over her, burying his face in the crook of her neck and inhaling deeply, shuddering.

“I always wondered what you smelled like without your perfume.”

His eyes have that crazed glow again, but it doesn't bother her anymore.

“I can still smell it beneath your skin. It's haunted my dreams, mon amour.”

His lips are lapping at her neck now, his hands seem unable to decide where he wants to touch her first, sliding across the silk of her chemise from her ass to graze slightly against a nipple and leave her moaning.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he takes a shuddering breath.

“I want to hear you make that noise again, ma déesse. Tell me- tell me how to make you fall apart for me.”

Catching one of his roving hands, she slips the bottle of lube into it before gently pushing him back. He falls back obediently, a flush extending from his cheeks down through his chest. His erection looks painful, leaking steadily onto the duvet, steadfastly ignored.

Spreading her thighs, Mama Eun-Rick coyly pulls up her chemise and arches her back, presenting herself to her entranced audience. Sliding a leg onto Riri's waiting shoulder, she rolls her hips and bites her bottom lip.

“Come on, baby. I need to wrap my legs around your waist while you pound me already.”

His hands don't shake as he empties the lube over his fingers, kissing his way up her calf and thigh again before he reaches that treasured warmth between her thighs. He wraps his lips around her as he slides a finger deep within her, already seeking out that spot that makes her vision go white with stars that look suspiciously like diamonds. She wraps her fingers in his hair as he adds another finger, moaning low and breathy for his ears.

“That's it, mon chéri. That's enough. You've waited long enough, you've been so patient for me. Come in me, mon ange. _Baise-moi_.”

She tries not to gasp as he rips his fingers from her, crawling back up her to kiss her desperately, seeming to beg for something without words. Frustrated, she hooks a leg around his knee, flipping him onto his back. He lies there panting, words gone as he digs his fingers into her thighs.

Sinking herself down on his cock, she moans at the perfect burn and slide, and the sound of his voice mingling with hers. She gasps as she seats herself fully, closing her eyes as she adjusts.

When she opens them he's staring at her with that gaze she's rapidly growing addicted to. She meets it head on and growls.

“Fuck me hard, Riri. Make it worth the wait.”

 

* * *

 

He's running reverent fingers through her hair and tracing the lines of her arm with his palm, seemingly drunk on the new permissions he has to touch her.

She smiles up at him, and he makes the same request he's made a thousand times before.

“Come away with me.”

She buries her head deeper in the center of his chest and doesn't immediately reject the idea.

“Where would we go?”

She's expecting one of his ardent soliloquies, extolling the virtues of the universe's most romantic sites to lull her to sleep. He surprises her with the simplicity of his response.

“Kurtu. Nuptia-7. Anywhere but here.”

He's still staring at her, but the fire in his gaze seems to have smoldered for now, leaving only the simple adoration and open worship she's been avoiding for so long.

“Ask again. In the morning.”

He drops his palm from drawing circles on her shoulder to bring her knuckles to his lips once again, but this time he doesn't let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This was a request for the lovely Futagogo, and it probably would have taken way longer if I hadn't woken up this morning to a notification that it was the 100th anniversary of Mata Hari's execution, how rad is that?!
> 
> Thank you for creating 'The Citadel of Lost Children', it is an inspiration in so many ways, and thank you for letting me play in your sandbox with your amazing characters.


End file.
